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The Case Against Science?

Submitted by kellym78 on April 28, 2008 - 1:19pm.

Sorry - this is a long one. For my next blog post, I'll be taking a break from Vox so I can kick somebody else's ass and all of you who keep telling me to drop the Vox project will shut up. As to the length--I know it's taking absurdly long and I still have 13 chapters to go. I just wanted to do a critique that was so detailed that nobody would need to read the book to know what it says. I may have to go with the more concise plan, though, so I can finish this sometime, oh....before I die.

Vox Day seems to have a proclivity towards using odd anecdotal evidence gleaned from the writings of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens in order to formulate his arguments against atheism, and he continues in the same vein in chapter three. In short order, we discover that “New Atheists” harbor outright hatred for religion and that we “science fetishists” believe that science “dictates” human behavior, rather than merely describing or explaining it.

It is humorous to see Vox attempt to argue that science, not religion, has outlived its usefulness to humanity—a reference to Daniel Dennett's theory in Breaking the Spell. There are thousands of phenomena that have yet to be explained thoroughly, countless cures for illnesses, and an innumerable amount of problems that can only be solved through the use of science. Ironically, Vox practically contradicts his personal beliefs by claiming that humanity has survived “millenia of religious belief,” but due to things like over-population and global warming, as well as the aforementioned development of WMDs, we may not survive a mere four centuries of science. (Four? He later claims it's really 60 years.) Considering that the overwhelming majority of scientific advancements have been positive and improved our quality of life, and there is still much work to be done, this argument is not tenable in any way, not to mention that Vox doesn't even believe that global warming is occurring. (nb: He does attempt to semi-dodge by adding the disclaimer, “If the prophets of...are correct,” but I find that to be borderline dishonesty considering his personal opinion on the matter. Vox is spinning this with centrifugal force.)

To illustrate his point, he opens up the chapter with a quote from Sam Harris that seems to acknowledge the danger posed by some of these scientific advancements insofar as it gives those with no fear of death (ie—the religious folks who believe that this is merely the prequel to their “real” life in heaven) the ability to destroy all of humanity to fulfill their destiny, whatever they feel that may be. Mutually assured destruction is merely hastening the grand finale of god's plan for our existence and leaves our supernatural dictator to sort the wheat from the chaff. From that perspective, it almost seems like a good idea.

I have no idea what this has to do with Harris' “Enlightenment utopianism” or the argument that religions have never created an atomic bomb or a carbon-producing, petroleum-guzzling automobile. Religion has also never created a defibrillator or an antibiotic. Why would it? It has absolutely nothing to say about technology of any sort, other than when it is referred to as being evil in some way. It seems that Vox is really grasping at straws here. It's as if he has created a false dichotomy of the vilification of science and the justification of religion. They are, and should be, completely separate issues. One of the biggest issues that atheists have with religion is the refusal to butt out of science. Science is not the opposite of religion, nor is it a religion. It is a method of explaining facts and observations and the world in which we live—at least to the best of our ability given our limited knowledge at any one point. (Think Descartes in Meditations regarding action without perfect knowledge.) Of course, it's not as if the five major religions listed by Vox, which oddly excludes Judaism, have not had weapons—the stone and the machete are still popular in some Middle Eastern countries, and that is certainly more painful and torturous than being shot or nuked.

His ultimate conclusion here is that the real danger is science, not faith. He misses the point that religious belief provides the impetus to use that technology. Not to sound like an NRA spokesman, but weapons don't kill people: People kill people. Overpopulation, pollution, and advanced weaponry are caused in part by science, but not in the nefarious way that Vox seems to imply. The detrimental effects seen in the post-Industrial Revolution era were both created by science and discovered by science. Hopefully, they will also be solved or at least diminished by science. Abandoning science is certainly not the solution, not to mention the fact that I don't think anybody, Vox included, wants to go back to the era of plagues, premature mortality, and endless manual labor just to survive. If you do, have fun eating tree bark.

Vox attributes the “responsibility” for the development of advanced weapons to science. How can science be responsible for anything at all? It is a method, a discipline with no agenda and no ability to do anything for which it could be held responsible. Would it not be the specific people who utilized science in order to formulate the things that Vox considers detrimental? What he does here would be akin to blaming highways for the criminals who use them to escape from police, despite the fact that the vast majority of drivers are on their way to some mundane job. I assert that Vox either misunderstands the meaning of the word “cause” or is just padding his argument with spurious claims.

He does attempt to rebut the impending criticisms, some of which are used here, but I find that his analogies are inaccurate. Cigarettes don't cause cancer if you don't smoke them, so once again, the onus of responsibility lies with the person making the choice to smoke. Inanimate objects, material or immaterial, cannot cogitate and are only tools used by people. Some people may use pencils to stab people—is the pencil responsible? We can even flip this argument around and say that since religion causes or has caused some negative events, then religion itself is responsible and no amount of good makes up for those atrocities. Vox will argue here that the real danger lies in mutually assured destruction, which no amount of faith is going to cause. That's true enough on the surface, but what if that faith is the motivation to use such a weapon? Belief in an afterlife of perfection and bliss doesn't tend to make one prize their, or anybody else's, time here on earth. If science is responsible for the negative repercussions of technology, then religion should be held to the same scrutiny, and thus his argument that religion doesn't cause violence is moot.

Vox argues that adherents of a religion should not be blamed for the actions of other, more radical, believers if we insist that all scientists should not be held accountable for the actions of a fringe minority. Again, this seems to make sense, but the fundamental difference between science and religion is that a scientific worldview does not endorse any particular activities—it is not a set of proscriptions and laws upon which your eternal soul depends. His assertion that individual believers are held accountable for the actions of other believers is inaccurate—it's not the other believers, it's the belief system. There are no threats of hell or promises of heaven for certain behaviors inherent in science—only the temporal consequences of the justice system. The only way that religion can be viewed as not directly inciting violence is by claiming that the texts upon which a religion is based are allegorical or outdated. All throughout the bible and the koran, violence is encouraged and even demanded. The whole basis for christianity is that god has some kind of bloodlust because of the evil system which he designed that required first animal sacrifice, and finally human sacrifice. We are all deserving of death from the moment of our births (maybe even conception since their argument is that blastocysts are human beings) and without Jesus' propitiatory sacrifice, we would all go to hell to be tormented for eternity. Sounds like good wholesome family values.

If the scriptures of any religion are inaccurate or outdated, then one must admit that their god is not omnipotent or omniscient. One of them has to go. Either he couldn't ensure their transmission without error, or he was just wrong about what was going to happen. If they are outdated, then god cannot be eternally existent as there would be no moment at which his commands or desires would expire. The bible recounts many examples of god changing his mind, (think Abraham and Lot, for example) but such behavior would be impossible for a being that exists outside of time and is unchanging, which leads us right back to omnipotence and omniscience. The whole anthropomorphized omnimax creator being is a concept so absurd that even those who believe in it cannot explain it or agree upon its foundational attributes. That should be a clue as to its veracity.

That makes it extremely ironic that soon after the aforementioned defense, Vox claims that it is better in some instances for humans to remain ignorant of certain things to prevent the damage they may cause. He says, “I am merely pointing out that the evidence suggests that in some circumstances, ignorance may be preferable to knowledge, especially partial knowledge imperfectly understood and enthusiastically embraced too soon.” (p. 50) A better description of religious belief is rarely uttered, although his intent was to disparage science. We would be much better off without the so-called “knowledge” of religion and imaginary sky-daddys.

Certainly, the words of Feynman and Dawkins on pages fifty-two to fifty-three are indeed true—science gives one the power to do good and evil. What one chooses to do with it is not the fault of the method by which it was developed. The designers of the first automobile didn't know about carbon dioxide and pollution resulting in potentially catastrophic global warming. Should they be blamed? Even Henry Ford, who made the mass production of automobiles possible, had no idea what the impact would be. Unfortunately, we just can't see into the future. It's like pharmaceutical development—a small percentage of people may have adverse effects, but if it is beneficial to most, then the risk is worth taking. If it is no more effective than a placebo but still has adverse effects, then there is nothing redeeming about it and it should be eliminated.

Vox returns to the Harris argument that science and faith produce a toxic concoction which may eradicate humanity and claims that Harris' logic is flawed because the real danger is science itself. I think that Vox is missing the point that both components are necessary and the removal of one eliminates, or at least reduces, the danger of the other. Again, if religion is the impetus behind the use of a weapon, even if only insofar as the person who is utilizing it feels assured that a better life awaits in eternity, like a suicide bomber, then religion is to blame for the unjustified use of that which was scientifically developed. Given that science has, in a very short time period, done more good for humanity than religion has in thousands of years, and that the negative effects do not outweigh the positive, we can conclude that it is a worthy endeavor. Religion, on the other hand, has done what? There are a few soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and that's great, but atheists do that as well. A recent study showed that non-religious physicians were more likely to treat the under-served and impoverished than their christian counterparts. There are missions in other countries, but what good is building a church in Guatemala when people are starving? Is proselytizing to an African woman going to save her child from Kwashiorkor's disease (a malnutrition related and fatal ailment)? Meanwhile, we have killing in the name of religion, child molestation due to the repressed sexuality forced upon Catholic priests, suicide bombers killing people everyday, and catastrophic events such as 9/11 which kill thousands. Oh, wait, that must have been the fault of the Wright brothers and others who laid the foundation for modern airplanes. One must conclude that an individual's personal comfort derived from religion is not enough benefit to make up for all of the detrimental effects. Religion should be recalled.

Vox has a few examples of how religion supposedly doesn't subvert science, which we all know is untrue. Just the idea that believing things based on faith without knowledge is virtuous is an abhorrent concept that is taught to children all over the world. He does the stem-cell bit, which I'm not even touching because this would be another three pages if I did. Interestingly, he claims that science forms the basis for a system of ethics, which is absolutely ridiculous. A scientist could be a utilitarian, a hedonist, a determinist, a humanist, an anything-ist—science has no fundamental ethical or philosophical worldview. Science is a methodology. Yes, it can influence people and the decisions they make, but that doesn't make it a religion. Vox Day also doesn't seem to realize that statistics are meaningless out of their context, and the reason why the US (which is NOT a christian nation) produces more scientific output than France, which he claims as the most atheistic country, but I don't know where he's getting that data from, is because we have more money. Shocking, I know. I wonder how much of that scientific output is from his brothers in christ as they develop more sophisticated weaponry.

Science has at times been slow to adopt new theories. Vox uses the example of antibiotics, and there are more, such as hand-washing preventing childbed fever, which killed thousands of women after giving birth soon after that process was institutionalized. Generally, this is because the new idea or product must be proven to work. We have antibiotics now and we know all about germs and hand-washing, so it is apparent that the scientific community relented. Meanwhile, some religions still cling to creationism, whether literally or loosely interpreted, and they have historically balked at every scientific discovery since heliocentrism until it is so well established that they look silly. Then they just re-interpret their obscure ancient myths to fit the new data and make ludicrous claims like Mohammed knew about atoms. The push to clothe creation in science and insert it in schools is a travesty. It's bad enough that people choose to teach their children fairy tales and to claim certainty where there is none. Religion has, and will continue to, dumb us down, as it makes us complacent participants in some grand play in which we are all just marionettes anyway.

I personally feel there is no need to apologize for length. Headlines are not news stories. Just because the modern attention span has shrunk by half does not mean that any and all arguments should not be presented.

Personally, I think it would be funny to print off you paraphrazing of his book, cannabalize the cover from an actual one, and glue it on. I have a feeling this rendition will be markedly more honest.

Who ever thinks science and religion can reasonably mix is a foolish appeaser of god dogma crap.

Gosssh my Kelley inspiration, I love you so, don't work too hard , but feels so real good when you work it ! ..... geezz girl , Wow girl , so amazing that I forgot ??? .... ummm, something about some dumb god it was.

Creationism – Abusing our Children Isn’t teaching an alternative to evolution the right thing to do? Shouldn’t we look at Intelligent Design as a scientific theory equal to the theory of evolution? What is wrong with teaching the controversy? What about the new Ben Stein movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed? The release of the “Wedge Strategy” written by the Discovery Institute — Center for Science and Culture gives us the exact strategy that we see in almost every creationist attempt to inject the Intelligent Design theory into public schools. There are several points I would like to articulate first that are present in both the “Wedge Strategy” and in other ID literature. 1.The first strategy you will notice that is universally employed by most creationists is the “Evolutionist vs. Christians.” Looking at the usual suspects, we find the following:Ken Ham, in an article found on the website “answersingenesis.com” states: “Creationists and evolutionists, Christians and non-Christians all have the same evidence—the same facts. Think about it: we all have the same earth, the same fossil layers, the same animals and plants, the same stars—the facts are all the same.” [1]He then goes on to remove the term “creationist” and the term “non-Christian” from his article and simply refers to “evolutionist” and “creationist”. This makes it seem that you must pick a side, either evolution or Christianity. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book and it needs to be viewed in that context, as a trick.The basis of this seems to be the “Wedge Strategy” of: “Mainline renewal movements begin to appropriate insights from design theory, and to repudiate theologies influenced by materialism”To rebuke the claims that Evolution and Christianity are anything but incompatible a large group of Christians participate in “Evolution Sunday”. Currently there are 816 congregations in all 50 states and 9 countries that are involved. [2]It is possible to find “Theistic Evolutionist” in every Christian denomination as well as Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and other world religions. One of the greatest theists of our day wrote:"Cosmogony and cosmology have always aroused great interest among peoples and religions. The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer. The Sacred Book likewise wishes to tell men that the world was not created as the seat of the gods, as was taught by other cosmogonies and cosmologies, but was rather created for the service of man and the glory of God. Any other teaching about the origin and make-up of the universe is alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven." (Pope John Paul II, 3 October 1981 to the Pontifical Academy of Science”The tactics employed by Creationist to divide “evolutionist” from “Christians” seems to give the status of true believers only to those who adhere to the precepts of Creationist claims. This is not only false, but false to such an extent that intentional deception is the simplest answer. When presenting this argument to children in our schools or to the teachers who instruct them, it forces a false “Religion versus Evolution” quandary. Faced with this choice, there will inevitably be those who turn their back on Evolution as a testament to their faith in God. 2.Intelligent Design isn’t CreationismThis is simply wrong. This is seen in Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., Case No. 04cv2688. The suit was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania seeking injunctive relief. Since it sought an equitable remedy there was no right to a jury trial; the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution did not apply. It was tried in a bench trial from September 26, 2005 to November 4, 2005 before Judge John E. Jones III. On December 20, 2005 Judge Jones issued his 139-page findings of fact and decision, ruling that the Dover mandate was unconstitutional, and barring intelligent design from being taught in Pennsylvania's Middle District public school science classrooms. The eight Dover school board members who voted for the intelligent design requirement were all defeated in a November 8, 2005 election by challengers who opposed the teaching of intelligent design in a science class, and the current school board president stated that the board does not intend to appeal the ruling.[3]The reason this is so important to both Christian and non-Christian parents alike involve allowing theological arguments to enter the science classroom. While it may be the instinctual reaction from Christian parents to allow this one exception to keep their children from questioning the beliefs of their religion, few of them would be willing to allow Astrology, Alchemy, Flat Earth, Holocaust denial, or Numerology into schools via a “Teach the Controversy” method. If a non-science hypothesis such as Creationism (or Intelligent Design) is allowed to skip the normal scientific requirements then other unorthodox views must also be allowed. 3.Evolution is just a theory, why is it being taught?I can find no better statement regarding this than the one found at talkorigins.org. “The word theory, in the context of science, does not imply uncertainty. It means "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" (Barnhart 1948). In the case of the theory of evolution, the following are some of the phenomena involved. All are facts:Life appeared on earth more than two billion years ago;Life forms have changed and diversified over life's history;Species are related via common descent from one or a few common ancestors;Natural selection is a significant factor affecting how species change.” [4]The argument of Evolution being “just a theory” is someone trying to use common wording in order to pull the wool over your eyes. People who are educated in science or the intelligent design movement know this better than anyone else and are being deceitful if they try and use it. Do not let people lie to you or your children with this argument. 4.Evolution is a theory in crisis!No, it isn’t. Telling this to children is nothing more than lying to them. There are no gaping holes in the theory of evolution. There is no “missing link” that provides reasonable doubt as to our descent from a common ancestor. While “creation scientist” make well funded and produced video’s on the subject, they are usually destroyed by normal free thinking individuals within hours of their release. In the few occasions that eminent scientist are confronted with “Intelligent Design” claims of holes in the evolutionary theory the result is usually an intellectual evisceration of the ID nonsense. Simply put, not one single claim of Intelligent Design has been proven true while Evolution has withstood 150 years of the most intense scrutiny science can muster. To put it more directly, if there was proof that the theory of evolution was flawed there would be many hot-shot scientist looking to make their name and their fortune writing peer reviewed papers and making practical experiments involving the “Intelligent Design” model.5.Don’t make our children stupid.If we make the teaching of the Theory of Evolution an exception to our normal teachings on science then we call into question all the things we derive from it. Making the above listed arguments as a reason teach Intelligent Design is both deceitful and violates the law. Teach your children whatever morals you wish, but don’t teach them lies or falsehoods, it will only make them seem less intelligent and more closed minded in the long run. Todd Branchtodd.branch@gmail.com 1^ http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i1/creation.asp2^ http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/rel_evolution_weekend_2008.htm3^ ^Judge Rules Against 'Intelligent Design', Michael Powell, The Washington Post, December 21, 20054 ^ http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA201.html

I've read your blog off and on. Nice work. I just completed a related project for an assignment I did for my graduate program. I have an open-minded teacher who let me produce a documentary on creationism using a principle of Rogerian Argument. I think the approach is a little different than I've seen. Take a look when you can.

Back in the old Atheist lifestyles forum on AOL, late 90's and early this century, there was a never ending sea of Christians out there that basically repeated the same messages over and over again. They did not care a bit about losing every argument, only that they got to witness for Jesus. Arguing with them just legitimized their view point and spread their ideas instead of admitting they were wrong they simply came back and made the same points over and over again.

These 'witnessing Christians' actually got social brownie points by appearing heroic because they were protecting cherished beliefs agains the infidels of science. The book you are going through now is the exact same thing. Ben Stein's new movie is the same thing, a rehash of Church propaganda, showing creationists as social heros when in fact they are intellectual zeros, and this constant never ending sea of propaganda only survives by people responding to it and spreading it all over again. We need to do the same thing for secular people.

On the plus side the Church is dying on its own. It has been emptying out since the 1950's at roughly 1.3% a year. The pastors do know this and don't have a clue as to why. The Church groups report much larger numbers than who actually show up every week and make the core assumption that the missing members have not contacted them to be removed from their rolls but the people are leaving on their own. The major reason for this is that the real world trumps the made up ones every time. The church members are living in the real world and the real world does not support any faith at all. They refer to themselves as Christians when questioned but if you ask them if they go to church more than once or twice in the past ten years for funerals or weddings they have to say no. This puts them in the secular camp.

Another factor working against the Church is their creationist stance and their anti abortion stance which has contributed to the annual migration out of the Church by women as well as men. Their anti science and anti government stance is totally weird because in America here, religions are free of government interventions other than when they break state or federal laws. Why attack the government? Well, its the David and Goliath story all over again. The Church, being at war with the state gives them permanet under dog status but their joining the sate under the Republican party has pretty much destroyed any pretense that they are not planning on taking over the goverment but all these desparate moves has done is show how stupid the ministers out there really are and how unconnected to the real world the modern Church has become.

Another factor is that the Internet makes the priest class moot. In the past, small town people, in particular, have had no alternative to the Church to meet local people or talking to the priest class about personal problems. I want to open up Secular-life which is an atheist/agnostic/secular people local town centered social web site that has local classified ads. I want to sell those ads for a memberhip fee with the fees eventually going to the ones who help me get it off the ground or flaming queen liberal causes. I would love to come up with the money to open up social centers with computers for the poor. I want to open up here in September. The ads will be a buck a day for non members and free for members. They will be live ads in that they can change the content at will so that small shops can have a web presence for dirt cheap. Nobody seems to care for the little guy and gal and their needs for a web presence that is localized.

I am dying myself from Huntington's disease so this atheist lives in a fox hole and I would love to help raise awareness about genetic diseases in general but I want to cover how and why even when we humans get horrible diseases most humans just rise to the challenge, adapt, change and move on. I have worked out a really good set of science anchored modern ideas about people and the world we live in. I am senile half the day but for some reason St. John's Wort recovers my access to my brain and memories and stops the bad motor problems that would be there without it. The Univeristy of Iowa is doing a study of St. John's Wort on hd patients this summer just for me because with it my cognitive skills and motor skills are off the charts for people with my disease.

Most humans are quite decent. It is not Church that creates decent people but our biology. Around the world, countries that removed lead from their environments have caused a drop in criminals and violent crime rates. The violent crime rates in the US have dropped every year for the past 30 years ever since they removed lead from the gasoline. There is still a lot of lead out there but it's mostly in the ghetto parts of town. Britain did the same thing about ten years later and their crime rates have dropped as well. None of the cultures, including the US who dropped lead have had any legislative impact on crime. Harsh laws do not work and if you make kids in jail get their GED, they do not go back to jail. But one of the darker elements of our ape side is the pleasure we get for punishing law breakers. It is totally irrational but has lead to a never ending sea of 'law and order' politicians who have created a very harsh criminal system that does not educate or otherwise give ciminals the skills they need to stay out of jail in the future.

One of the core conservative ideas out there is that people are 'sinful by nature' and not capable of living their lives without Church or the state to punish them for their sinful actions. Unfortunately, people are the exact opposite by nature, quite decent and well behaved. Who controls the City of Chicago- the police or the gangs? Most conservatives would pick one or the other but the actual fact is that the individual people who live there control their own daily actions and their civil and civilized actions lead to the City of Chicago being controlled by decent people and not by the criminals who are a tiny minority even in Chicago. I want to tackle all these absurd ideas about the world that take the place of facts. People's beliefs about the world are limited to their own experience and reading. Most people are very unsophisticated and need a reliable fact base to work from. I should probably just do a couple of books but I can have much more impact leading the intellectual charge from Secular-life.org since I have a very limited life expectancy and am senile half the day it is better for me to build the web site and preach from there until I can no longer work about four to seven years from now unless some kind of cure comes out of the current high level of research being done for HD.

But, as awful as my life is I have to stay engaged in the world to keep recovering lost functionality and because I do follow what science has to say about the brain I have a very rich life in spite of the disease I have. My younger brother has full blown chorea and can't control his body at all. My younger sister is rapidly losing her motor skills as well and forced her husband to quit work to take care of her. Both are retired Air Force and have enough cash to go for a year or more without working. I am in much, much better shape because I do what the researchers tell me to do and I go out every day and walk the local Mall and I go out on the web and keep up my programming skills and I keep up on modern science, including information science and in spite of me not being employable because of my disease I have to keep getting engaged at higher and higher levels here to stop the relentless brain damage being done by the hungtinton's disease. Every single thing I write keeps my 78 year old brain active- I am only 56 but cell death has lead to my brain dying off but the human brain is quite plastic and I keep recovering my abilities just by doing what I am doing right now.

I want to go forth on the web and motivate people to do more because everyone is as capable as I am and everyone can improve their lives but the biggest improvement is having people to talk to with similar interests. Most of the towns in America have only conservative news rags to read. By opening up an atheist news letter for all towns in the US I think that we can get more and more secular people to own up to the fact that because they believe funny stuff about the world from time to time in their lives does not take away from the fact that all of us, over a life time, grow or stop growing intellectually and it is our personal choice to do so. But this means that all of us are probably 99.999% secular. The odd ball beliefs we have do not actually shape our lives but the real world situations we all have in our personal lives can best be dealt with by an understanding of the world and the deep that understanding the greater our options are for personal growth and development.

I can also deal with conservatives without tripping any of their triggers but they need to understand that their most cherished ideas are based on thoughts about the world that are common knowledge but which are not actually true. It's better going through their idea base and quietly have them switch off the bad ideas on their own. The best way to do that is to localize the ad system and the content as much as I can. I will need local writers and global writers to do that for the long haul.

If you need to know more or want to join the fight at a higher level. All are welcome. The Blog world is filled with writers who would love to have access to their local market but their local market has no reason to read what they write or has no clue they are out there. By adding in an easy to use advertising system with no limits on members for $20 a year I suspect that I can get the majority of ads over time here from even the most devout here. This, of course, means a lot of conservatives and christians who are not involved in the church but need to sell of junk they have accumulated, including houses, but understand that the web is the place to go. By localizing ads I can easily grab most people out there who have no other place to go for local ads and will love to do their ads with me here because of how cheap they are. The constant atheist chatter, though, will break through their defenses over time. But we really do need to move those who left church out of the dark ages and help as much as we can. False beliefs about the world are what separate us.

As soon as I can, I am going to do the same thing for the rest of the world with world ads, which is another, localized web service for the whole world. Anyway, it is time for a whole new approach and I need all the atheist bloggers and flaming queen liberal bloggers coming out of the wood work to help.

Hey, guys: sign up for an account. I counted four "not verified" accounts, and that's four more voices for reason. Four more reasonable voices is a big deal. Sign up so that the "reasonable" side can have just as much clout as the supernaturalists.

Thanks very much Don Flowers, and all the best to ya. I googled "Secular-life.org" to no avail ? I didn't see a link ... except for your e-address. My writing skills are not generally reader friendly, but I'd like to stay informed and help relay your site and goals.

Yes, because geology proves a 6,000 year old earth, astronomy proves we're at the center of the universe, biology shows that bats are birds, telescopes show we live on a flat earth, radiation dissipation shows that the sun revolves around the earth, weather radar shows there are flood gates that open and when closed hold back water, and physics show that men can walk across water. Idiot.

Jerud1711 , take that you Idol worshiper ..... my atheist Jesus/Buddha is 'mad as hell' at YOU, you enemy to heal .... Evolution is how "gawed" works; Religion is blasphemy of our very selves. We are GOD ! All is ONE. All is EVOLUTION .....

Theists are not against science. We are against lies that claim to be scientific, like evolution. Science is actually on our side and is our friend.

The lie of evolution?

My dear fellow great ape...allow me to retort.

*flings poo and screams*

Have you ever taken a flu shot? It's based on evolutionary theory. Have you ever agreed that DNA evidence collected at the scene of a crime was rock solid evidence for someone being convicted to death or being freed from jail? It's based on evolutionary theory. Do you think paternity and maternity tests hold any validity? Based on evolutionary theory. Ever owned one of those cool plants that grow both tomatoes and potatoes? (I have) Evolutionary theory. Cloned animals? Hybrid animals? Evolution, evolution, evolution. Proven, scientific fact. The only thing in question is exactly how evolution occurs. It's bickering over tiny details. But evolution itself? Proven fact. Not even questioned except by fundies that refuse to let go of their delusions.

If we are telling ourselves lies like you seem to be doing I guess I will join in. "Religion is not absurd." Eh. Sorry, I just can't act that stupid. Religion is beyond absurd.

It is quite amusing to argue for the existence of god on the basis that science has caused global warming therefor we would be better off without it.

In europe as christianity spread, priests would move into an area, convert the populace, erect a church on a hill and then clear the land using slash and burn techniques.

The catholic church is responsible for the deforestation of europe and they needed nothing more than axes. the church did a pretty good job of starting the process in the americas too.

Science may have given us tools to hasten our own destruction but it has also given us insight, rational explanations and an awareness of cause and effect. You will be hard pressed to find a scientist that doesn't think we should be doing more to curb the damage we are doing to our environment. The problem is politicians/corporations that like the status quo too much.

I have a lot more faith in the scientific method that leads us to create things like solar panels and wind farms to provide our energy needs in the next century than I do in praying to god to fix the problem.

But out of respect for those with religious tendencies perhaps we should all sacrifice our first born and chant 3 hail mary's to appease the angry god who has melted the arctic because of all the unbelievers... I'm sure that will solve the problem.